This article about the “Morningstar Minority Empowerment Index” caught my eye. The Index taps into investor appetite for DEI data by selecting US stocks based on an NAACP scorecard & Sustainalytics data.
As is usually the case with these types of issues, investors aren’t just excluding “under-performing” companies from their portfolios – they’re also agitating for change. As I blogged earlier this week on the Proxy Season Blog, proponents have submitted more than 60 “diversity & racial justice” proposals this season. Over 20 companies have received proposals asking for a D&I report – and at least 6 companies have received a proposal asking them to conduct a “civil rights” or “racial equity” audit (including Amazon, Citi, BlackRock & State Street).
Corp Fin recently rejected J&J’s no-action request to exclude a Trillium proposal that requests a civil rights audit. The Staff didn’t agree that J&J’s publication of a D&I report was “substantial implementation” of the proposal, that it dealt with matters related to the company’s “ordinary business,” or that the proposal was “materially false & misleading.” This WSJ article speculates that the Staff might agree with fewer no-action requests this year.
Resolved, shareholders request the company conduct and publish a third-party audit (within a reasonable time, at a reasonable cost, and excluding confidential/proprietary information) to review its corporate policies, practices, products, and services, above and beyond legal and regulatory matters; to assess the racial impact of the company’s policies, practices, products and services; and to provide recommendations for improving the company’s racial impact.
If J&J ends up publishing an audit, it won’t be the first company to do so. Starbucks has published two assessments, and Facebook published a civil rights audit last summer.
As You Sow’s New “Scorecards”: Racial Justice & Workplace Equity
As You Sow is out with a pair of new scorecards for the S&P 500 (and they’ve filed a bunch of related shareholder proposals):
– Racial Justice – scoring companies based on their “racial justice statements,” corporate policies and practices across 22 data points
– Workplace Equity – assessing the quality of companies’ DEI disclosures
To gather data, they are looking at websites (including reporting/disclosure and career pages), social media accounts, and sustainability reports. The results of the findings are available as an overall composite list of the “top 10” & “bottom 10” – and also can be sorted by sector, HQ state, region, market cap, and number of employees. Here’s some of the key “Workplace Equity” findings:
– The largest companies by market cap, and the largest employers by headcount, are most likely to release meaningful workplace diversity and inclusion data.
– Almost half (46%) of the 100 largest companies by market cap in the S&P 500 release their consolidated EEO-1 forms, a good first step for sharing workplace composition. Within the 100 largest employers in the S&P 500, more than 1 in 4 do so. Of the companies that fall within both categories 30 of 53 (57%) release this form.
– More than 1 in 4 of the largest 100 companies release their recruitment rates of female employees. Almost 1 in 5 release their retention rates of female employees, and 1 in 10 release their recruitment rate of female employees.
– Disclosure rates of recruitment, retention, and promotion data by race and ethnicity is still catching up to gender data, likely a reflection of the #metoo movement gaining traction in 2017, while the protests in the aftermath of George Floyd murder began in late May, 2020, less than a year ago.
– Across sectors, a few companies have shown early leadership in publishing recruitment, retention, and promotion data by race and ethnicity. These companies include: Allstate, Apple, BlackRock, Norfolk Southern Corp and Oracle Corp which release their recruitment rates; Alphabet, Edison International, Intel, PVH Corp and Twitter, which release retention rates; and Consolidated Edison, Goldman Sachs, Progressive, Twitter and Walmart which release promotion rates.
– 16% of the S&P500 release at least one recruitment statistic related to race or ethnicity. Within the 100 largest companies by market cap, 23% do so. Within the 100 largest employers, 23% do so.
– 15% of the S&P 500 have released a quantifiable goal related to their workplace diversity, equity and inclusion goals. Within the 100 largest companies by market cap, 22% do so. Within the 100 largest employers, 22% do so. Of the companies that fall within both categories 13 of 53 (25%) release this form.
As You Sow is also continuing to release its scorecards on Waste & Opportunity – measuring 50 large companies in the beverage, quick-service restaurant, consumer packaged goods and retail sectors – and Pesticides in the Pantry – scoring 14 food manufacturers on transparency & risk in food supply chains – as well as its mainstay, the “100 Most Overpaid CEOs.”
California Board Diversity Statute: Less Than Half of Companies Report Compliance
At our “Women’s 100” session last week, there was some great back & forth about whether California-headquartered companies are relocating due to that state’s board diversity legislation. The gender diversity law, SB 826, required listed companies with principal executive offices located in California (no matter where they are incorporated) to include at least one woman on their board of directors by the end of 2019. That minimum increases to two by December 31, 2021, for companies that have five or fewer directors – and to three women directors, for companies that have six or more directors. The newer law, AB 979, which requires adding directors from other underrepresented groups, will first come into play at the end of this year.
According to the “Women on Boards” report that was released last week by the California Secretary of State, 22 listed companies moved their headquarters out of the state last year – and 6 moved into the state (the report doesn’t analyze whether the moves are in reaction to the legislation or for other, unrelated reasons). The report included a couple of other surprising data points as well:
– Out of the 647 companies subject to the rule, 318 filed the state’s required disclosure statement – and 311 of those statements showed that there’s at least one woman on the board
– 288 companies voluntarily filed the state’s disclosure statement
The Golden State publishes this annual review in order to monitor compliance with its board diversity laws – next year, there will also be a review of underrepresented communities on boards. But for now, the exercise seems to show that a lot of companies are ignoring the reporting requirement, which would appear to result in fines under the statute.
The report lists every company identified as being required to comply with the rule, the date they filed the disclosure statement (it’s blank for those that skipped the filing), and whether or not they reported having at least 1 female director in 2020. It doesn’t include company size as a data point, but a quick skim indicates that the larger & more familiar companies seem to be complying, and the smaller companies…not. There are exceptions on both ends of that spectrum.
The last thing to note is that this report isn’t all that useful if you’re looking to get a sense of the current composition of California boards, because it pulls data from backward-looking Form 10-Ks and California disclosure statements that were mostly filed during the early part of 2020 calendar year. But it paints a pretty telling picture of whether companies believe that filing the disclosure statement is worth their while.
In what investors are saying is a big win, the DOL announced yesterday that it won’t enforce its pair of recent rules that limited consideration of ESG factors in retirement plans’ voting & investment decisions. The details of the non-enforcement stance are explained in a 1-page policy statement. Here are the key takeaways:
The Department has heard from a wide variety of stakeholders, including asset managers, labor organizations and other plan sponsors, consumer groups, service providers, and investment advisers, who have asked whether these two final rules properly reflect the scope of fiduciaries’ duties under ERISA to act prudently and solely in the interest of plan participants and beneficiaries. Stakeholders have also questioned whether those rulemakings were rushed unnecessarily and failed to adequately consider and address the substantial evidence submitted by public commenters on the use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations in improving investment value and long-term investment returns for retirement investors.
The Department has also heard from stakeholders that the rules, and investor confusion about the rules, have already had a chilling effect on appropriate integration of ESG factors in investment decisions, including in circumstances that the rules can be read to explicitly allow. Accordingly, the Department intends to revisit the rules.
Until it publishes further guidance, the Department will not enforce either final rule or otherwise pursue enforcement actions against any plan fiduciary based on a failure to comply with those final rules with respect to an investment, including a Qualified Default Investment Alternative, or investment course of action or with respect to an exercise of shareholder rights. This enforcement statement does not preclude the Department from enforcing any statutory requirement under ERISA, including the statutory duties of prudence and loyalty in section 404 of ERISA. The Department will update its website at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa as more information becomes available.
CalSTRS Says “Activist Stewardship” Is Here
It’s shaping up to be an active proxy season. As this Wachtell Lipton memo explains, ESG & TSR activists are teaming up. In the throes of Engine No. 1’s dissident campaign – and facing pressure from hedge fund D.E. Shaw – ExxonMobil last week appointed two new directors to its board.
The new directors, Michael Angleakis of Atairos and Jeff Ubben of the “activist E&S fund” Inclusive Capital Partners, weren’t part of Engine No. 1’s dissident slate. so while D.E. Shaw welcomed the appointments, Engine No. 1 said they weren’t enough – and that campaign continues.
In this recent HLS blog, two influential leaders at CalSTRS – the country’s second largest pension fund, with approximately $275 billion in assets – suggest that this is just the beginning of a bigger “activist stewardship” trend. Here’s why:
1. Divestment of individual companies isn’t an attractive option for “universal owners” whose portfolios essentially reflect a representative slice of the economy – they need to manage systemic risks, as I blogged yesterday
2. These investors are growing frustrated with ineffective engagements at some companies
3. Activist techniques – such as replacing directors – can effect the types of changes that investors believe will improve the value of their overall portfolio
The blog points to Engine No. 1’s campaign, which CalSTRS supports, as a “pilot” for future activist stewardship. It lays out a game plan and says that CalSTRS’ goal is to create activist stewardship capabilities “at scale” in order to protect future investment returns. That means board composition – and disclosure about director skills – will continue to grow in importance.
Net-Zero Planning: Investors Want More Than “Offsets”
Yesterday, the UK’s “Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change” – representing 35 trillion Euro in assets under management – published this “Net-Zero Investment Framework 1.0.” The most surprising nugget in the 30-page document is that the use of carbon market offsets in achieving net-zero goals is specifically discouraged. While a lot of people in the sustainability space believe that offsets are mostly smoke & mirrors, the investor position stands in stark contrast to the “market-based solution” that the BRT and many companies have been embracing as a way to meet their recently announced corporate greenhouse gas reduction goals.
This Politico article also emphasizes that quality offsets are in short supply. The article says that today’s market isn’t big enough for a single major corporate pledge. As I blogged earlier this year, the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets found that the market would need to grow by at least 15-fold by 2030, enough to absorb 23 gigatons of GHGs per year, to be able to support the pledges that companies are making.
Yesterday, Corp Fin revised “Disclosure Guidance Topic No. 7” to be more specific about how to handle expiring orders. When this piece of the guidance was first added last September, it tied the analysis for the different alternatives to orders issued “less than 3 years ago” or “more than 3 years ago.” Now, Corp Fin has helpfully put a stake in the ground at October 15, 2017. So the alternatives upon expiration are are:
1. If the contract is still material, refile it in complete, unredacted form
2. Extend the confidential period – using the short-form application for orders initially issued after October 15, 2017, or filing a new and complete application for orders initially issued on or before October 15, 2017
3. Transition to the “redacted exhibit rules” in Reg S-K Item 601(b)(10), if the contract continues to be material and the initial confidential treatment order was issued on or before October 15, 2017
Corp Fin also reiterated that if a confidential treatment order was granted on or before October 15, 2017, you don’t need to wait for the order to expire to transition to compliance with the redacted exhibit rules. You can just start doing that in a new filing or by amending a previously filed document.
Mandatory Climate Disclosure: California Bill Sets Ambitious Tone
California has been a bellwether for board diversity & consumer privacy movements. Now, it could be setting the tone for mandatory climate disclosures. California Senate Bill 260 – which was introduced in late January and will be taken up by committees this month – would apply to publicly traded domestic and foreign corporations with annual revenues in excess of $1 billion that do business in California, and would require:
– Public disclosure of their greenhouse gas emissions, categorized as scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, from the prior calendar year – beginning in January 2024
– Setting & disclosing “science-based emissions targets” based on the covered entity’s emissions that have been reported to the state board, which would be consistent with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius – beginning in 2025
– Public disclosures to be independently verified by a third-party auditor, approved by the state board, with expertise in greenhouse gas emissions accounting
This Akin Gump blog explains why this bill would be a big deal if it passes:
While many large companies already issue climate disclosures on a voluntary basis, SB 260 would no longer give them—or their more reluctant peers—a choice. Importantly, the bill’s required scope 2 and 3 emissions reporting would force companies to disclose, for the first time, the indirect emissions that result from their purchase and use of electricity as well as their supply chains, business travel, procurement efforts, water use and wastes.
Covered entities also would have to engage certified third-party auditors to verify their disclosures and emissions targets, another noteworthy first that should lead to a greater degree of standardization over time in climate reporting. Given the bill’s capacious reach and the minimum contacts with California required to trigger its applicability, most large companies in virtually every sector would soon face climate disclosure requirements.
As the blog explains, the bill faces a long road before it could become law. But even if it doesn’t end up passing, the dialogue that comes out of this process could influence company practices and investor preferences – and maybe even other disclosure regimes.
Value Vs. Values: False Dichotomy?
When pressed on “social policy” positions, the talking point for index funds and long-term investors seems to be that they’re simply taking positions that promote long-term financial value for the company. This recent study points out that it’s not so much the financial value of each individual company that they’re trying to maximize – it’s the financial value of their overall portfolio. And because that overall financial value increases when society prospers, investors have strong incentives to promote “ESG” issues, which reduce systemic risk and lead to diversified gains. Here’s an excerpt:
The analysis also shows why it is generally unwise for such funds to pursue stewardship that consists of firm-specific performance-focused engagement: Gains (if any) will be substantially “idiosyncratic,” precisely the kind of risks that diversification minimizes. Instead asset managers should seek to mitigate systematic risk, which most notably would include climate change risk, financial stability risk, and social stability risk. This portfolio approach follows the already-established pattern of assets managers’ pursuit of corporate governance measures that may increase returns across the portfolio if even not maximizing for particular firms.
Systematic Stewardship does not raise the concerns of the “common ownership” critique, because the channel by which systematic risk reduction improves risk-adjusted portfolio returns is to avoid harm across the entire economy that would damage the interests of employees and consumers as well as shareholders.
These theories probably don’t mean much for boards as a whole – who will still need to focus on their specific shareholders, and the business judgment rule will protect most decisions. But when it comes to individual directors, the paper makes the case that rejecting “weak directors” is one company-by-company action investors can take that has portfolio-wide effects. That seems to be consistent with some of the investor policies that have been published lately, and means the focus on board composition & skills isn’t going away anytime soon.
We’ve just posted the registration information for our “Proxy Disclosure” & “Executive Compensation Conferences” – which will be held virtually October 13th – 15th. We’re excited to offer a format that can be either “live & interactive” or “on-demand” (your choice! or do both!) – to deliver candid & practical guidance, direct from the experts.
These Conferences will help you tackle ESG & executive pay issues that will be essential to your proxy disclosures and engagements. Check out the agendas – 17 panels over three days.
Early Bird Rates – Act Now! As a special “thank you” for early registration, we’re offering an “early bird” rate for a limited time to both members & non-members of our sites. In addition, anyone who subscribes to one of our sites will get a special “member discount” when they register for these Conferences (both of the Conferences are bundled together with a single price). Register online or by mail/e-mail today to get the best price and make sure that you’ll have access to all of the latest guidance.
ICOs: Investment Advisers Face Scrutiny
This Reuters article says that in his confirmation hearings last week, SEC Chair nominee Gary Gensler signaled openness to additional crypto regulations if his nomination is approved. Overall, the remarks seem pretty non-committal. But in the meantime, the SEC’s Examinations Division has issued a risk alert to explain its continued focus on digital assets – in particular, the Staff will be taking a closer look at the practices of investment advisers to make sure that digital assets are properly classified as “securities” when necessary, and at the disclosures those firms are making about the risks of crypto purchases.
The risk alert also casts a spotlight on transfer agents using distributed ledger technologies and says the Examinations Division will review whether those services comply with Exchange Act Rules 17Ad-1 to 17Ad-7. See this Mayer Brown memo for more details & practice implications.
“Machine Readable” SEC Filings: What Does It Mean?
I blogged recently about how the year-end report from the SEC’s Investor Advocate urged the Commission to adopt rules that would make companies’ SEC filings machine-readable. This paper points out that corporate disclosure has already been reshaped by machine processors, since those types of downloads have been steadily increasing over the past 15-20 years – and looks at how companies are adjusting their SEC disclosures when they know that machines are doing the reading.
“Machine readability” means that it’s easy for machines to separate and extract tables and numbers from text, it’s easy to identify tabular info because of clear headings, column separators and row separators, the filing contains all the needed info (without relying on external exhibits) and the characters are mostly standard ASCII. See page 31 for examples of high and low machine readability, pulled from actual reports. The researchers say that we humans are starting to make adjustments in our behavior to cater to our robot friends:
Our findings indicate that increasing AI readership motivates firms to prepare filings that are more friendly to machine parsing and processing, highlighting the growing roles of AI in the financial markets and their potential impact on corporate decisions. Firms manage sentiment and tone perception that is catered to AI readers by differentially avoiding words that are perceived as negative by algorithms, as compared to those by human readers.
Such a feedback effect can lead to unexpected outcomes, such as manipulation and collusion (Calvano, Calzolari, Denicolo, and Pastorello, 2019). The technology advancement calls for more studies to understand the impact of and induced behavior by AI in financial economics.
On Friday afternoon, the SEC announced that it had filed this complaint against AT&T and three of its IR execs for violations of Regulation Fair Disclosure. This is the first Reg FD enforcement action that we’ve seen in a couple of years – the Enforcement Division does indeed seem to be “powering up” and wasting no time in bringing litigation.
The charges show that the SEC views talking down analyst estimates as a problem under Reg FD. One of the most surprising points in the SEC’s announcement is that the IR execs allegedly disclosed info that the company’s internal policies specifically said could be “material.” Here’s an excerpt (also see this Stinson blog):
According to the SEC’s complaint, AT&T learned in March 2016 that a steeper-than-expected decline in its first quarter smartphone sales would cause AT&T’s revenue to fall short of analysts’ estimates for the quarter. The complaint alleges that to avoid falling short of the consensus revenue estimate for the third consecutive quarter, AT&T Investor Relations executives Christopher Womack, Michael Black, and Kent Evans made private, one-on-one phone calls to analysts at approximately 20 separate firms.
On these calls, the AT&T executives allegedly disclosed AT&T’s internal smartphone sales data and the impact of that data on internal revenue metrics, despite the fact that internal documents specifically informed Investor Relations personnel that AT&T’s revenue and sales of smartphones were types of information generally considered “material” to AT&T investors, and therefore prohibited from selective disclosure under Regulation FD. The complaint further alleges that as a result of what they were told on these calls, the analysts substantially reduced their revenue forecasts, leading to the overall consensus revenue estimate falling to just below the level that AT&T ultimately reported to the public on April 26, 2016.
While we don’t know yet whether this claim will end up being settled and what type of penalties (if any) AT&T will face (at this point, the SEC’s allegations are unproven), the fact that the company is charged in the complaint is a reminder that simply having a policy in place isn’t enough to avoid litigation. Check out our 135-page “Reg FD” Handbook if you need to jump-start your compliance efforts.
EDGAR Gets a Makeover!
Wow. The EDGAR filings page has been completely remade (here’s Apple’s page as an example). Our members are giving it mixed reviews so far, but that might be because it takes time to get accustomed to a new interface.
In addition to being able to revert to “classic version” via a button at the top right (h/t Lowenstein Sandler’s Daniel Porco), you can still use “form descriptions” to search for filings – click the “view filings” box in the top left box, and then use the “search table” box just like on the old page.
The updated version also has a new field to be able to search text in filed documents, which will be helpful. Perhaps the “company information” box at the top of the page will eventually be populated with more key info that’s pulled in from filings…
Tomorrow’s Webcast: “Conduct of the Annual Meeting”
Tune in tomorrow for our “Conduct of the Annual Meeting” webcast – to hear Crown Castle’s Masha Blankenship, AIG’s Rose Marie Glazer, Rocket Companies’ Tina V. John, American Election Services’ Christel Pauli and Oracle’s Kimberly Woolley discuss expected “virtual meeting” trends for the 2021 proxy season, annual meeting logistics, rules of conduct, handling shareholder questions, and voting & tabulation issues.
Bonus: If you attend the live version of this 60-minute program, CLE credit will be available! You just need to submit your state and license number and complete the prompts during the program.
Members of this site are able to attend this critical webcast at no charge. If you’re not yet a member, subscribe now. The webcast cost for non-members is $595. You can renew or sign up online – or by fax or mail via this order form. If you need assistance, send us an email at info@ccrcorp.com – or call us at 800.737.1271.
Allianz has issued its annual “risk barometer” – which identifies the top 10 risks for the upcoming year based on a survey of nearly 2800 brokers, underwriters, senior managers and claims experts in the corporate insurance sector. It’s always a helpful read for identifying macro trends and issue spotting for your risk factors, although of course you need to tailor those to explain how the macro factors specifically affect your business.
“Business interruption” has been the top risk for 5 of the last 6 years – last year was the exception, with people worrying that cybersecurity would be the thing that kept us up at night in 2020. For 2021, “business interruption” is back at the top – which seems prescient in light of this week’s power grid failure in Texas and the SEC’s informal reminders to companies that they should have contingency plans to be able to carry on operations during emergencies. The risk of a pandemic outbreak is #2. Cyber incidents are hanging in there at #3 and are considered a potential “Black Swan.”
Here’s an excerpt:
When asked which change caused by the pandemic will most impact businesses, Allianz Risk Barometer respondents cited the acceleration towards greater digitalization, followed by more remote working, growth in the number of insolvencies, restrictions on travel/less business travel and increasing cyber risk. All these consequences will influence business interruption risks in the coming months and years.
The knock-on effects of the pandemic can also be seen further down the rankings in this year’s Risk Barometer. A number of the climbers in 2021 – such as market developments, macroeconomic developments and political risks and violence – are in large part a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak. For example, the pandemic was accompanied by civil unrest in the US related to the Black Lives Matter movement, while anti-government protest movements simmer in parts of Latin America, Middle East and Asia, driven by inequality and a lack of democracy. Rising insolvency rates could also affect supply chains.
All that said, only 3% of survey participants were worried about a pandemic at this time last year. So, one of the main takeaways I gleaned this year was that it’s pretty difficult to predict the “next big thing.”
Transitioning to “Non-Accelerated” Filer Status: What Year Do You Use for the Revenue Test?
We’ve been fielding a ton of questions from members in our Q&A Forum these past few weeks. Here’s one that could affect your 10-K deadline (#10,573):
Company is currently an accelerated filer and a smaller reporting company. As of June 30, 2020, their public float was between 75 and 250 million (approx. 100 million). Its FY 2019 revenue was above 100 million; however, its FY 2020 revenue is below 100 million.
My question is for determining whether it transitions to non-accelerated status, should company use the FY 2019 or FY 2020 revenue for the SRC revenue test exception to accelerated filer status? The rule says it is the revenue as of the most recently completed fiscal year but do not know if that determination is made as of June 30 like with public float or now. If company uses FY 2019, then they would still be an accelerated filer but using FY 2020 I believe they would be a non-accelerated filer.
John responded:
Under Rule 12b-2, accelerated filer status is assessed at the end of the issuer’s fiscal year, and the applicable SRC revenue test is based on the most recently completed fiscal year for which financial statements are available. Since the 2020 financial statements won’t be available at the time when the assessment is made, I believe that you will continue to look at the 2019 financials in determining whether the issuer remains an accelerated filer during 2021.
I think that position is also consistent with footnote 149 of the adopting release, which indicates that a company will know of any change in its SRC or accelerated filer status for the upcoming year by the last day of its second fiscal quarter. Here’s an excerpt:
“Public float for both SRC status and accelerated and large accelerated filer status is measured on the last business day of the issuer’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, and revenue for purposes of determining SRC status is measured based on annual revenues for the most recent fiscal year completed before the last business day of the second fiscal quarter. Therefore, an issuer will be aware of any change in SRC status or accelerated or large accelerated filer status as of that date.”
We’ve posted the transcript for our recent webcast – “Conflict Minerals & Resource Extraction: Latest Form SD Developments” – which covered these topics:
The SEC has redesigned Corp Fin’s Rule 14-8 no-action page – and the layout is very user-friendly for those of us who spend proxy season monitoring incoming requests & responses. The old page was more spread out in narrative form, whereas this new version organizes into easy-to-read boxes the no-action response chart, incoming requests and final materials for responses – as well as reference materials and info from prior seasons. Bravo!
Filing Relief for Texans: Case-By-Case, But Proceed With Caution
As a Minnesotan who relies heavily on heat & electricity during the winter months, I’ve been flabbergasted by this week’s dispatches from Texan friends & colleagues. We are keeping y’all in our thoughts and hoping your power is restored soon.
We’ve had some inquiries on whether the SEC is offering weather-related filing relief to companies located in the Lone Star State. A gracious member shared this info in our Q&A Forum (#10,619):
This is what I was told today by the SEC Staff (Office of Chief Counsel). By the way, I am in Austin and we have no water, over 48 hours no power and I am working from a phone hotspot/makeshift solar panel attached to batteries, so yes, it is truly a survivalist situation out here in Texas — I hope everyone is staying safe!
• The SEC is aware of the power grid failures/inclement weather and related challenges in Texas and wants to help issuers experiencing the effects of these challenges.
• If you are an issuer with a filing deadline that you cannot meet due to the situation in Texas, such as an 8-K or Section 16 filing, the SEC encourages you or your counsel to contact the SEC staff to make them aware of the situation (via edgarfilingcorrections@sec.gov and follow-up with a call to the staff) and you can request a date adjustment of the filing per Rule 13(b) of Regulation S-T: “If an electronic filer in good faith attempts to file a document with the Commission in a timely manner but the filing is delayed due to technical difficulties beyond the electronic filer’s control, the electronic filer may request an adjustment of the filing date of such document. The Commission, or the staff acting pursuant to delegated authority, may grant the request if it appears that such adjustment is appropriate and consistent with the public interest and the protection of investors.” The filing should be made as soon as it is practicable to file and the staff can assist the issuer in adjusting the filing date afterwards.
• For the upcoming 10-K filing deadline (March 1 for LAFs), the SEC is monitoring the situation and *may* issue more broad filing relief (as it did last year around this time at the beginning of the COVID pandemic), but they will not make that call unless there are still issues going into next week and it believes that broad relief is warranted by the situation.
• In short, they are monitoring the situation but in the time being, they are only working with issuers on a case-by-case basis.
That being said, issuers may want to be judicious about requesting relief, because it might suggest that the company does not have sufficient contingency plans to continue normal operations during emergencies such as prolonged power outages. But the SEC will work with issuers who are experiencing a hardship.
More on “Proxy Season Blog”
As we enter the height of proxy season, make sure to follow our daily posts on the “Proxy Season Blog” – for TheCorporateCounsel.net members. Members can sign up to get that blog pushed out to them via email whenever there is a new entry by simply entering their email address on the left side of that blog. Here are some of the latest entries:
– Norges Urges Greater Board Gender Diversity, Focus for Engagement Meetings
– “How To’s” for Engaging with Proxy Advisors
– Virtual Shareholder Meetings: Fix For “Beneficial Owner” Admission Issues
As this recent Cooley blog recounts, since the Rule 10b5-1 safe harbor was adopted 21 years ago, it’s been a magnet for controversy. In the wake of trading gains realized by pharma execs when positive vaccine news came to light last fall, which were followed by remarks from outgoing SEC Chair Jay Clayton about “good corporate hygiene” for trading plans (also see this Cohen & Gresser memo), the safe harbor has been back in the spotlight.
Earlier this month, John blogged about “best practices” suggested by Glass Lewis that would promote transparency around these arrangements. People are now also talking about the “red flags” identified by this Stanford research as signs of potentially opportunistic trades. The paper caught the attention of three Democratic US Senators – who used the research as a basis for this letter to Acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee. In it, the lawmakers urge the SEC to reexamine its policies on Rule 10b5-1 plans to improve “transparency, enforcement and incentives.”
Specifically, the Senators note these possible remedies for “abusive” Rule 10b5-1 practices:
1. Requiring a four-to-six month “cooling off period” between adoption or amendment of a plan before trading under the plan may begin or recommence
2. Requiring public disclosure of the content of 10b5-1 plans, as well as trades that are made pursuant to such plans
3. Enforcement of existing filing deadlines – and requiring that forms disclosing 10b5-1 adoption dates are posted on Edgar
4. Enforcement of penalties when executives “benefit from short-term windfalls that don’t translate into long-term gains” – by way of modifying Exchange Act Section 16(b) to apply to 10b5-1 profits that follow disclosure of material information, if the share price falls immediately after that disclosure
The letter asks the SEC to respond by next week to a series of questions about its actions on this topic. One recommendation that the Senators didn’t pull in from the Stanford research – for now – was a disqualification of single-trade plans. The professors contend that these plans are no different than traditional limit orders – and that Rule 10b5-1 should only apply to multiple transactions spread over a certain time period.
While that recommendation might seem reasonable to people who aren’t dealing with administration of these plans, people in the trenches view it as further evidence of the “great divide” on this topic. A member wrote in with this feedback:
One recommendation that caught my eye is to disqualify single-trade plans. They say that single-trade plans aren’t different from traditional limit orders (which wouldn’t qualify for the safe harbor). I disagree. A trading plan can just set a tranche of shares to sell at a future date without specifying a price – they can be sold at whatever the market price is, which of course differs from a limit order.
My understanding of why an insider might have a single-trade plan is to diversify holdings following vesting of a large award. They know the vesting is coming up, they already hold a bunch of shares, and they want to diversify. So, they set up a trade sometime down the road, which allows the sale to happen even if there’s an unscheduled blackout and also allows them to avoid dealing with executing the trade when they’re busy with other things six months from now.
Also, we have a process with our captive broker where any limit order is automatically terminated when the trading window closes, as we don’t want it to execute during a blackout period. So for our execs, a limit order wouldn’t solve the issue of being able to trade during a blackout period – but a trading plan would.
SOX Compliance in Pandemic Times
Does it seem like everything is taking longer and requiring more planning in pandemic times? Between masking up, thorough hand-washing and navigating crowds, I’m factoring in at least an extra 30 minutes for any encounter with the outside world. Good luck buying a car or “dropping in” to fitness classes or hair salons. And if you want to mail anything, you’d better plan for at least 6 weeks of delivery time.
Well, according to this Toppan Merrill memo (pg. 2), you’re probably also going to need to allot more time to compliance processes this year. It’s taking longer to test SOX controls in the remote environment, and many of the people involved are overworked and tired. External auditors also want to be brought into the tent earlier so that they can spend more time digging through any non-routine transactions.
To maintain the rigor of compliance programs, the memo recommends spending more time on quality employee training, and revisiting the basics of your controls and documentation, to make sure everything is working. Especially if your company is suffering a revenue downturn, “minor” transactions could end up having a bigger impact than you’d typically expect.
Tomorrow’s Webcast: “Activist Profiles and Playbooks”
Tune in tomorrow for the DealLawyers.com webcast – “Activist Profiles & Playbooks” – to hear Joele Frank’s Anne Chapman, Okapi Partners’ Bruce Goldfarb, Spotlight Advisors’ Damien Park and Abernathy MacGregor’s Patrick Tucker discuss lessons from 2020’s activist campaigns & expectations for what the 2021 proxy season may have in store.
Bonus: If you attend the live version of this 60-minute program, CLE credit will be available! You just need to submit your state and license number and complete the prompts during the program.
Members of DealLawyers.com are able to attend this critical webcast at no charge. If not yet a member, subscribe now to get access to this program and our other practical resources. The webcast cost for non-members is $595. You can renew or sign up online – or by fax or mail via this order form. If you need assistance, send us an email at info@ccrcorp.com – or call us at 800.737.1271.
Last week, Acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee announced that she’s restored to senior Enforcement Staff the power to approve the issuance of Formal Orders of Investigation, which designate who can issue subpoenas in an investigation. That means that Enforcement Staffers will be able to act more quickly to subpoena documents and take sworn testimony.
This is a reversal of the policy that then-Acting Chair Mike Piwowar implemented in the early days of the Trump administration – and departure from the traditional requirement for Enforcement Staff to obtain sign-off from the Commissioners on a Formal Order of Investigation before issuing subpoenas. Former Chair Mary Shapiro first expanded the subpoena power back in 2009, in the wake of the Bernie Madoff fiasco.
Decentralizing the power to pursue enforcement actions is a sign that the pendulum is currently swinging toward the “investor protection” aspect of the SEC’s mission. This job posting suggests that the Enforcement Division also might be staffing up. We don’t know for sure that these steps will lead to a higher number of investigations – see this Jenner & Block memo for key open questions that will determine how aggressive things could get. Nevertheless, companies are unlikely to view them as a positive development.
Also last week, Acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee issued this statement to reverse the Clayton-era policy of simultaneously considering enforcement settlements and requests for waivers from “bad actor” consequences – e.g., loss of WKSI status, Rule 506 eligibility and PSLRA safe harbors. Commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman followed with their own statement to object to the policy change.
The move means that waiver requests will revert to the domain of Corp Fin and the Division of Investment Management, rather than everything being negotiated by the Enforcement Division and companies being able to condition their settlement offers on the grant of a “bad actor” waiver. This Sullivan & Cromwell memo explains the three-fold impact of separating settlement & waiver conversations:
First, the change in policy signals greater skepticism on the part of the SEC with respect to granting waivers to settling entities. We expect that waivers will become more difficult to obtain and, when granted, may include additional, and potentially more burdensome, conditions.
Second, the change in policy creates increased uncertainty for entities settling with the SEC because they can no longer be guaranteed Commission review of the settlement of their enforcement matter simultaneously with their requested waivers. The impact of this change as a practical matter is unclear. If a settling party is denied a waiver and then seeks to withdraw its settlement offer, it remains to be seen whether the SEC will nevertheless proceed to seek judicial approval of the settlement in the face of such attempted withdrawal.
Third, the change in policy indicates the SEC’s intent to keep waiver discussions substantially separate from enforcement recommendations. Our understanding is that these discussions generally happen separately in any case, so we do not view this as a substantive change.
Tomorrow’s Webcast: “Private Offerings – Navigating the New Regime”
Tune in tomorrow for the webcast – “Private Offerings: Navigating the New Regime” – to hear Rob Evans of Locke Lord, Allison Handy of Perkins Coie and Richie Leisner of Trenam Law discuss the SEC’s rule amendments simplifying and harmonizing the rules governing private offerings – and how to prepare to take advantage of them.
Bonus: If you attend the live version of this 60-minute program, CLE credit will be available! You just need to submit your state and license number and complete the prompts during the program.
Members of this site are able to attend this critical webcast at no charge. If you’re not yet a member, subscribe now. The webcast cost for non-members is $595. You can renew or sign up online – or by fax or mail via this order form. If you need assistance, send us an email at info@ccrcorp.com – or call us at 800.737.1271.
With ESG gaining most of its momentum relatively recently, it’s not too surprising that the executive careers of many directors didn’t include a strong focus on sustainable operations metrics. Now, though, there’s a risk that investors could start to view that as a skill gap. Here’s an excerpt from a study published last week that’s making the rounds:
NYU Stern’s Center for Sustainable Business undertook a deeper dive and analyzed the individual credentials of the 1188 Fortune 100 board directors based on Bloomberg and company bios in 2019 (see box 1 on methodology),and found that 29% of (1188) directors had relevant ESG credentials. 29% seems like a decent showing, until we drill deeper and find that most of the experience is under the S; 21% of board members have relevant S experience, against 6% each for E and G (numbers are higher than 29% as some members had more than one credential).
The “S” credentials were clustered around workplace diversity (5%) and healthcare issues (generally through board memberships with medical facilities).
An issue of growing materiality, cyber/telecom security, had just eight board members with expertise. There were very few directors who had experience with ethics,transparency, corruption, and other material good governance issues. The third largest category across E, S & G and the largest in the G category was accounting oversight (G) at 2.6%. U.S. boards are required to have a least one board member with audit/finance background and most boards have at least two with that background. However, we only included board members with exhibited leadership in this area, such as being a trustee of the International Financial Reporting Standards Board or a member of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board. The second largest area of expertise (1.0%) under the G was experience with regulatory bodies such the SEC or FCC.
Two areas of material importance to most companies and to investors, climate and water,had just five and two board members with relevant experience, respectively, across all1188 Fortune 100 board members. In general, there is very little director expertise for the “E,” with all nine categories at approximately 1%.
The study has shocking numbers but loses some credibility due to the way it’s measuring “relevant credentials” – as noted in this Cooley blog. But the fact that the data is out there – and investors’ growing interest in disclosure about the board’s role in ESG oversight – does suggest that there could be a benefit to examining and enhancing board sustainability credentials (through education and/or recruitment), and tying skills disclosure to “ESG” experience. For more thoughts on how expectations are evolving, see this Morrow Sodali memo on the future of the board.
NYSE: Annual Compliance Reminders
The NYSE has sent its “annual compliance letter” to remind listed companies of their obligations. The letter reminds listed companies that in response to market and economic effects of the pandemic, the NYSE has provided relief to listed companies from certain shareholder approval requirements. The NYSE is seeking to enact this relief as a permanent change to its shareholder approval rules – John blogged recently that the SEC is soliciting public comment on the proposed rule change.
The NYSE annual compliance letter is a good resource to have on hand – all the NYSE email and telephone number contact information is provided and the letter explains when and how listed companies should contact the exchange for various matters.
SEC Enforcement: Melissa Hodgman Named Acting Director
The SEC announced last week that Melissa Hodgman has been named as Acting Director of the agency’s Enforcement Division. Melissa was previously serving as Associate Director in the Enforcement Division and began working in the Division in 2008. Prior to joining the SEC, she was in private practice with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy.
